


Time for a Rewind

by HopePrevails



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s04e13 Journey's End
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-08 09:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17383856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopePrevails/pseuds/HopePrevails
Summary: The Doctor receives a call from an old friend of hers - of course she has to follow the signal, but this small call triggers a whole new turn of events which run the Doctor and friends uncomfortably close to a huge paradox.Back on Earth in 2008 with planets hanging in the sky, it's up to the new Team T.A.R.D.I.S to make sure the Tenth Doctor and his team are able to complete this crucial mission smoothly, a feat which someone is clearly trying to disrupt.





	1. Chapter 1

Twenty-three days, Yaz had said. Twenty-three days since Sheffiled, the crane, Tim Shaw and- Nan. Felt like a lifetime, like his life before the Doctor and the T.A.R.D.I.S was some weird dream, a prologue before his real life started.  
Instead of that old warehouse, he was seeing things he'd only dreamed of as a kid, never believed he could step a foot outside Earth. It was crazy. Even though it had been twenty-three days and a lifetime, didn't stop this part from being any less scary. Ryan had thought ladders were difficult - that was before he'd tried staying on his feet in a flying T.A.R.D.I.S.  
Ryan's hand slipped on the console, the soles of his Vans scraping the grate floor in a desperate attempt to keep him upright - whatever counted as upright, anyway.  
"Doctor!" His voice wobbled with the shake of the console room, drowned out by that loud wheezing. "DOCTOR!"

"Sorry! Just a bit longer!" Came a shriek from the other side of the central crystal.

"Are you ever going to get a handle on this thing- her, I mean 'her'?"

"Graham!" The Doctor gasped, yanking herself to another lever, "T.A.R.D.I.Ses were designed to be flown by eight pilots and you're complaining about a bit of turbulence?!"

"I'm just saying-" The whole room creaked and hopped and Graham stumbled, grabbing onto a pillar, "one of these days one of us is gonna hit our head or something."

"Yeah-" Yaz piped up, "no offence, Doctor, but have you considered having like, some seats or something?"

"Look, we can debate interior design later, I just need to-" Ring ring.

Ryan frowned. Through the wheezing and the shouting and the clanking of metal, he could've sworn he heard- Ring ring.  
That wasn't his, was it? Risking a hand off the console, he fumbled with his pocket zip, reaching in and pulling out his phone. Nah, wasn't his.  
"Oi, is someone's phone ringing?"

"What's that, Ryan?!"

"Phone! Is that someone's phone?"

There was a second where Yaz and Graham both reached for their own pockets, unlocking their phones and adopting a frown just like Ryan's.  
"No?"

"Nah, Ryan, it's not mine."

They all fell silent again, suddenly a lot more interested in where the ringing was coming from than how difficult it was to stay on their feet.

"Doctor?" Yaz asked and the other two looked at their pilot, a pilot who had seemed to have stopped piloting. She was stood the stillest they'd ever seen her stand, hands still lingering on levers and buttons she'd already flipped and tapped. Her eyes were fixed on the console, on a very specific point just a few inches from her left hand which twitched when the ringing pierced the TARDIS once more.  
With a deep, sharp breath, she leapt forwards, snatching something from the console and holding it in her palms like water that could leak out the cracks, staring at it as it rang with a look on her face which spoke both of unbridled excitement and absolute terror.

The other three shuffled around the console, all straining to get a look at what had shaken the Doctor into silence, something they'd nearly never seen happen. Huh. Ryan squinted, trying to make sure his eyes were right. It was like, an old Nokia or something.

"Oi," Ryan smirked. "That thing's ancient. What you got that for?"

Yaz shot him a nervous glare. "I don't think now's the time, Ryan."

Beep. The Doctor straightened up, as much as she could against the turbulence and whipped the phone to her ear. "Martha? Martha Jones?"

Yaz frowned. "Who's that?"

The Doctor hissed, lowering the phone and giving it a shake. "No one's there. How could someone call this number and not be there? Maybe- no. Maybe..." She nudged past Graham and plucked a cord from the midst of the buttons, jamming it into the end of the phone like an AUX.

"Doc, can I ask: what're we doing?"

"Following the phone signal. Somehow, someone has got this number and they could be in trouble." She danced around the console once more, flipping levers with a new look on her face, something which Ryan could only compare to thrill.  
"So," she stood back up, chest pumping with huge, excited breaths, eyes wide and grin stretching as far as it could, "we ready?"

The gang exchanged a few glances before Yaz did the honours: "Always."

Each of them did everything they could to anchor themselves in place, preempting the chaos which usually followed those words.  
Ryan, much like Yaz and Graham, hooked his hands into a safe spot on the console, planting his feet to the grate and nodding to himself, looking up to watch the Doctor's finger hover for a moment over a clear button, her face suddenly much darker than it had been. Her eyes jumped up and caught his. A smile pushed at her cheeks and her finger slammed the button.

The T.A.R.D.I.S lurched, her wheezes jumbling and juttering, the room trembling and leaping with an almighty crash and a loud, low whine vibrating the floor.

"WHOA!" The Doctor exclaimed, dragging herself around to the console screen and seeming to completely ignore Graham falling past her. "We're - we're - we shouldn't be-" she spluttered, lowering herself and squinting at the Gallifreyan spinning across the screen.

Ryan yelped, feeling his fingers slip, realising that maybe he was about to prove Graham right about the whole hitting his head thing. He really didn't want a concussion, not again.  
"When's it gonna stop?!" Ryan tightened his grip, gravity pulling his body back - he couldn't battle it much longer - he was going to fall!

"Oh, no."

"What?"

"No!" From what little Ryan could see through his tunnel vision, he could just about make out the Doctor flinging herself around the console, wrestling with the controls, punctuating the wheezing with panicked grunts.

"What's wrong?!" Yaz was plastered against a column a few feet away.

"I shouldn't've followed the signal! I'm sorry!"

"Sorry for what?!"

"I'm turning us around! Well, I'm trying to! Well, I'm failing to! Something's stopping me! Something's- something's blocking my commands! How-"

With one huge, tremendous shudder, Ryan's knees hit the floor, hard. At least it hadn't been his head. Through the sharp pain in his kneecaps, Ryan could just about notice that everything had stopped - the wheezing, the shaking... they'd landed. Finally.  
Grumbling, he put his elbows on the side of the console and pulled himself to his feet, his legs wobbling and threatening to buckle before he felt a hand on his arm. He looked up, and met Yaz's smile with his own.  
"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Doctor? Where are we?"

But she was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the T.A.R.D.I.S door had been left wide open, the cool air of the night outside crawling its way in.

Yaz's hand left his arm and she jogged after the Doctor. Ryan shook his head.  
"Graham?" He called, limping his way around the console. "Grandad?"

"Yeah, I'm alright, son." came a small groan from the floor. Ouch. Graham was laid on his back, limbs spread across the grate, eyes closed. "I just need a minute or two."

"Yeah." Ryan grinned. "Looks like it."

A shout echoed through the doors. "Guys!"

"Right, get up. That's our cue." Ryan took Graham's hand in his and pulled, helping him back to his feet and wondering if Graham's joints were going to be okay for whatever was outside those wooden doors. "Sure you're alright?" He pressed when his Grandad tried and failed to straighten up fully.

"Yep." Graham hissed, kneading his left shoulder with a thumb. He gestured with his head to the open doors and started walking as Ryan fell into step beside him. "Could do with a trip to that spa planet the Doc was on about - a massage sounds right up my street."

"Not gonna lie, the five-hundred water slides sound well fun."

"Hear that, Doc? We want that spa planet next, ta very much. Oh, that's not right, is it?"

No, no, that definitely didn't look right. They'd stepped out of the doors, from the warmth of the TARDIS into a bitter, unfriendly chill.

"That's crazy." Ryan muttered, eyes on the sky, darting between planets which hung so close to the atmosphere he could see the mountains and craters and clouds and its mottled red surface, shining in the reflection of a smaller, silver world held a little further back. There were so many of them, so close to one another. That wasn't right, was it?  
He looked back down, at Yaz, stood beside the Doctor, at the street, tarmac street, dented with cars which smoked and hissed and sat on pavements outside abandoned houses, their doors ajar and alarms ringing, searing through the still night air. "But- no-" Yaz shook her head, hand rubbing her ring finger as she scanned the street.  
"Doctor, this is- this is Earth. How can this be Earth?"

"You're right." Graham mumbled. "This is England."

"London." The Doctor stated.

They all looked at her. Her voice was dull, edged with the slightest hint of panic they'd learned to pick up on. It meant something was wrong, but she was trying to hide it to keep them calm. Too bad - they'd known her too long to let it pass.

"Doctor, what's happening?" Ryan left the team's side, wandering over to one of the abandoned cars. All the cars on the street looked a bit old, from a few years back, definitely not modern. He could tell that much. "Where and when are we?"

There was a harsh hiss of a breath followed by a sharp bark. "Ryan, get back here, now. All of you, back in the T.A.R.D.I.S. We're leaving."

Ryan frowned back at the Doctor, hand lingering on the cold car door. He met her stern gaze with his own of confusion and irritation - surely they'd been travelling long enough now for her to quit keeping stuff from them? She turned back to the T.A.R.D.I.S, angling her hand to usher them inside.  
"Come on," she peeped in that faux-calm voice, "chop-chop!"

"Doctor, there's something wrong here." Yaz scoffed. "Look at it! It's like an apocalypse!"

"You've got to admit, Doc, that sky's looking out of sorts, ain't it?"

The Doctor sighed. "Graham, Yaz-"

"No, Doctor!" Yaz yanked her arm away from the hand that had gone to grab it. "If this really is Earth, then it's our home. We're not going to walk away when it's in danger!"

"Yeah, I'm with Yaz!" Ryan called from his spot beside the car, peering into the driver's side.

"Shh!" The Doctor hushed, finger over her lips as she jogged towards him and took his wrist, her face crumpled in an expression which shocked Ryan into submission - he couldn't tell whether it was quiet rage or terror, but it scared him either way. "Come on, back with me." She tugged and he followed her back to the T.A.R.D.I.S, giving Yaz and Graham a shrug as they passed.

Creeeak, SLAM!

...

"What."

They all paused, stood in silence, that whirring car alarm drilling its way permanently into their skulls. The T.A.R.D.I.S... its doors had just closed on their own.

Letting go of Ryan, the Doctor pushed at the door, muttering indecipherable words into the wood, shaking her head as she became harsher, more panicked, finally throwing her entire weight through one shoulder into the panel and rattling the handle. "What are you doing?!" Her laugh was high and incredulous. "Come on, old girl, let us in. You know where we are, we can't be here!"

"Where _are_ we, Doc? Seriously, tell us what's happening."

Ryan nodded. "Maybe we can help?"

But before she could do anything in the way of explaining, something else did it for her. It took one word, one word to inject all three of them with the fear and restlessness the Doctor had been carrying ever since the T.A.R.D.I.S had landed. They'd heard it before, not too long ago, and it still made Ryan feel like he'd been winded with a battering ram.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

A tight ball of shrill screams exploded the atmosphere, human screams, a few streets away, followed by a succession of gun blasts. And then the car alarm was back, spiralling into the new silence. The Doctor flinched, they all did.

There was a long while where all four of them stopped, not a breath escaping their lungs, not a finger twitching. It felt like a memorial service.

"Oh my God." Yaz whispered.

The Doctor turned to face them, her coat crumpled against the blue, hands clasping one another a little too tightly. She looked blank for a second, as if her emotions were fighting one another on which one would be shown before she landed on what Ryan considered to be guilt.  
"I'm sorry. I followed a signal from one of my old friends, but it's a signal I've followed before. It must've got all mixed up when we flew too close to the Medusa Cascade and I picked it up and it dragged us down to Earth but-" She looked past them all, her eyes darting about the environment and the fluidity of them, that trained efficiency gave Ryan a horrible haunting feeling right in his gut. She was familiar with the scene of an apocalypse.  
The Doctor pushed through them and stepped onto the street.  
"This isn't your Earth, not right now. Well, it is, but this is your past. It's set, it's done. This is like going back and watching an old movie for you guys, except you're here when it's being shot. And, well, I say 'you guys', but..." She looked back at the T.A.R.D.I.S, lip under her front teeth. Half-heartedly, she reached for her inside pocket and drew out the sonic, running it up and down the box's silhouette before drawing back and pondering the results.

"But, wait-" Yaz started, "if this is our Earth, just from the past, then... Doctor, that was a Dalek. When is this? What year?"

"2008." The answer was distracted, but enough.

"But there wasn't an alien invasion in 2008. Even if it was just London, we'd know."

"Yaz _has_ got a point, Doc. None of this makes sense."

The Doctor looked up at Graham, her expression grim. "Just because you can't remember doesn't mean it didn't happen. But that's the point!" She threw her hands out in frustration, nearing the blue box again and shaking her head. "This is an old chapter! In a few hours, Earth'll be back where it belongs and the Daleks will've failed, again."  
Ryan didn't miss that hint of victory in her voice.  
"So why aren't you letting us leave?" The Doctor gave the T.A.R.D.I.S door a quick knock, waited, then sighed. "We can't mess with this. It'd create a paradox. Unless..."

"Doctor?"

She turned back to Yaz, but was looking straight through her, eyes wide, sporting that small sparkle they always had whenever she was onto something. Her shoulders rounded and hands curled in the space between her and the others, as if she were attempting to grab the thought before it slipped too far away. "Unless there's a reason we picked up that signal. Maybe it wasn't an accident."  
Taking the sonic in her hand once more, she guided the three of them further away from the T.A.R.D.I.S before buzzing the screwdriver directly at the light on top of the box. With a single, hushed beep, it seemed to disintergrate before their eyes.

"Woa! Doctor!" Ryan exclaimed.

"Not to worry, Ryan, just a harmless bit of cloaking. She's still there, but I don't wanna risk her being found by our favourite dustbins." Shoving the sonic back in her pocket, she spun to face them all, hands clapping together and a little less-than-convincing smile on her face.  
"Right, gang! Something feels off about this place and, no, I'm not talking about the sky or the Daleks. I can feel it- right here -" Pressing a hand to her chest, she hissed, scrunching her nose up. "None of this is right. Best guess is that whatever caused the T.A.R.D.I.S to _manipulate_ me into flying us here is going to disturb the events which are supposed to happen. And, well, if everything isn't exactly right..."

"Universal destruction?" Yaz chanced.

"Absolutely correct, ten points for Yaz." Though the Doctor was a lot less thrilled than she was normally to be giving out rewards. "Now, you're all gonna have to stick very close to me. Do everything I say and under no circumstances do you interfere."

Graham snorted. "Like we haven't heard that one before."

"I mean it, Graham." And Ryan could tell that she really, really did. Her thin lips and heavy breathing told him that much. "The future of the universe is at stake. Nothing can go wrong, and we can't go creating paradoxes ourselves. Keep to the shadows, stay quiet and don't engage with anyone. Got that?"

Team T.A.R.D.I.S exchanged a few glances: confusion, worry, then determination.

"Yeah, we're ready." Ryan finally affirmed her.

A grin stretched her cheeks. "Time to find ourselves another T.A.R.D.I.S."


	2. Chapter 2

"What do ya mean by 'another T.A.R.D.I.S', exactly?" Ryan asked, jogging to catch up with the Doctor - she'd taken off down the street to the left without another word, sonic held high and buzzing its golden light through the shadows.  
The other two joined him, both looking equally perplexed.

"It's a bit of a mess to explain, if I'm perfectly honest. Best we keep the chatter to a minimum, sorry." The Doctor stopped abruptly, grabbing Yaz by the wrist, who grabbed Graham, who grabbed Ryan, and they were all pulled into cover behind an abandoned tool van.   
"Everyone stay very," The Doctor breathed, "very still."

Ryan felt his muscles seize - behind them whirred the motors of something unearthly, something he'd heard before: a Dalek.   
In the intensity of the moment, Ryan closed his eyes, scrunching them as shut as they could go and squeezing Graham's hand harder than must have been comfortable. But he felt him squeeze back and, before his fear had chance to boil over, a bucket of water was thrown on the fire.   
The whirring stopped, but he could hear it, the clicking of its cogs turning as it moved its body parts, the creaking of its metal casing. It was close, too close, and he could feel its icy blue glare burning the skeleton of the van. Did it know they were there? Hold still. Hold still.

"Sector 1-2-1 - clear. All humans have been exterminated." The whirring started once more and it rattled away, down the empty street. All four of them sighed, the tension leaving with the Dalek.

"That was horrible." Ryan gasped, a hand over his heart in an attempt to steady it.

"Was that the one that killed all those people back there?" Graham questioned, and Ryan really wished he hadn't - he didn't want to think about that. "Doc?"

"Doctor?" Yaz prompted gently and Ryan looked over. The Doctor was still pressed to the side of the van, her scalp rested on the metal and closed eyes angled at the black, crowded sky. The muscles in her neck were taught. "Doctor," Yaz said again, pushing herself to her knees and extending a hand slowly, hovering it just above the shoulder of that white coat as if she couldn't decide whether to touch her or not. Ryan couldn't blame her. In times like these, the Doctor became unpredictable.   
"Doctor, it's okay." Yaz assured her. "It's gone. We're okay."

It was like the Doctor was waking up from a deep sleep, her eyelids parting slightly, then fully, wetting her mouth, sitting up and running a hand through her hair and down her neck. She groaned, almost comically, then sprung to her feet, tossing her sonic in the air and catching it with a flourish.

The other three exchanged a look at that grin on her face, the one she wore when she was compensating for something.

"Sorry, got a bit tired." She shoved her hands deep in her pockets and tilted her head toward where the Dalek had disappeared. "That Dalek's heading where we want to go. How about we follow at a safe distance? Should be safe if it's just a lone scout - won't be meeting up with another for a bit if it's just on clean-up duty."

"'Another'?" Graham spluttered. "You mean there's more than one?"

"Doctor," Yaz pressed, "if there's something wrong, don't keep it from us. Please."

The Doctor looked her over for a moment, her grin fading to a blank stare before creasing into a sad but grateful smile.   
"Yasmin Khan. All that human empathy. You're lovely, you know that, right?" A second followed which held a special kind of weight to it, something which Ryan took a bit of time to understand. The Doctor shook herself out of it. "I'm okay, Daleks just aren't my favourite challenge, and everything about this place is making my body go haywire - too much disturbance, too many things going on at once. The faster we sort this out, the better. So, are we following this Dalek or not?"

 

Ryan quickly learned that, whilst he enjoyed stealth missions in video games, trying to hide from an alien war machine and follow it through apocalyptic streets definitely wasn't his definition of a good time.

They followed the Doctor's lead, racing after the trail of her coat as she darted from car to car, pausing every now and then to stick her sonic in the air and give it a buzz which made them all wince. Every time, she'd pull a face and whip the sonic back down, pressing it to her stomach as if she could erase the noise she'd made and whispering "Sorry!" to the others before darting off again. 

Ryan kept poking his head above the cars, peeping through their windows to watch the bronze shine of the dalek's casing glimmer in the streetlights. That thing had just killed people. Real people. He'd heard it. Just the thought of that made his stomach leap. Why were they following it, again?

"Wait-" The Doctor finally held up a hand, prompting them all to stop. They'd crowded into the small space behind the boot of a blue Mini, so close together Ryan could have sworn he could hear all four- five heartbeats fluttering away.

The dalek's motors had fallen silent. They waited. It waited. Ryan stared at Yaz's shoes, playing with the bobbles in the car tyre to push his anxiety back, listening closely for something to change, anything to tell them they were safe.

There it was. The whining creak of a door opening, closing, not far away at all. Ryan couldn't help it - his head left Graham's shoulder and he shuffled, back pressed hard against the brake lights, neck stretching to peer around the car, down the street.  
His heart jumped. "No way."

"Ryan-" but the Doctor's warning wasn't enough to shake him out of it.

"That's the T.A.R.D.I.S!" He hissed, turning back to pat Graham on the knee. "Some people just came out of it-"

"-Ryan! Shh!" Yaz's wide-eyed insistence was enough to shut him up.

He leaned back, attempting to steady his breaths. "I'm well confused."

"How can the T.A.R.D.I.S be there?" Graham questioned, but didn't press any further when the Doctor waved a silencing hand at him.

Ryan closed his eyes, trying to remember what he'd just seen, who he'd just seen walking out of the T.A.R.D.I.S. There'd been a tall man in a suit, a woman with red hair, right in the middle of the road. But there was a Dalek there, right there! They were gonna get shot!

All four of them tensed when the woman spoke, her voice echoing between the streetlamps. "'Like a ghost town." She got that right.

"Sarah-Jane said they were taking the people." The man said. Taking the people? So they hadn't killed them, back there? They were still alive? "What for? Think, Donna, when you met Rose in that parallel world, what did she say?"

Ryan looked back at the Doctor and the hopeful glimmer in his eyes dulled when he met hers - grim, dark, and distracted. He tapped Yaz's shoe with his own and nodded at the Doctor, silently asking her if she could do anything to bring the Doctor back down to Earth. He'd only seen her zone out like this a few times before, and no Doctor meant less hope. They couldn't be dealing with that right now.

"Doctor?" Yaz breathed, shaking the Doctor's arm until her eyes gained a bit more clarity and focus.

"Sorry, Yaz, just thinking." The Doctor looked over her shoulder, towards where Ryan had seen the T.A.R.D.I.S. "Times like these are always weird."

"What do you mean, weird?" Graham tried to crane his neck to see what she was on about, but got too nervous about the Dalek sitting a few cars away and sat back down again. "Isn't everything this weird with you?"

"Nevermind that. Keep listening."

"Just," the woman hesitated, "the darkness is coming."

"Oh, sounds cheerful." Graham huffed.

The man behind them continued, his desperation seeming only to grow: "Anything else?"

There was a pause, a long one, one which made Ryan uncomfortable. The Doctor, too, by the looks of it: she fidgeted and shuffled where she crouched, staring down at her hands.

"Why don't you ask her yourself?"

Everything stopped. To them, the Dalek wasn't there anymore. The woman's words hung in the air, light yet very heavy, heavy with something Ryan was trying to understand but couldn't, not without context. He felt them, though, just as he felt the footsteps which carried from the other end of the street.

From where they were sat, Team T.A.R.D.I.S could see her. Head high, walking between the cars as if she'd seen this all before, blonde hair glowing as if it were radiating light.

For a moment, Ryan thought he understood - he thought _that_ was the Doctor, of course it was, the Doctor from a few years back.  
As she drew closer, however, he saw her leather jacket and the huge rocket launcher slung across her back and he realised his mistake - the Doctor definitely wouldn't be carrying a gun.

Even from this far away, Ryan could see a smile light up her face and felt one on his own. It was contagious. She stopped, everything stopped. Then she walked, then ran, running as if the entire world depended on this one moment, as if there were no planets in the sky, no windows with lost panes, no smoke rising from the cars on the tarmac she sprinted down and the man did the same, leaving the red-haired woman's side and leaping past the Mini and into view, his feet moving faster and faster until it seemed he'd trip over and for one incredible moment, Ryan felt like he was watching a movie, one which melted a coat of empathy and happiness over his chest.

"Whatever happens," the Doctor's voice severed the scene, the gravity of it pulling Ryan back to reality, "don't move."

What did she mean? Why would they move? Oh. No.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

That's what she meant.

The gunshot was piercing, chilling, terrifying. And they couldn't do anything. They just watched. He'd seen that beam leave the barrel before, but never seen it hit someone. Now he had, and he'd wished he'd looked away.

The man's body lit up, his ribcage and spine a bright white splattered across his skin for a second as he fell, the pain leaving his chest in a groan before he hit the ground.

"Oh my God!" Yaz gasped.

"Doc, that man just-"

Ryan spluttered, "Doctor, we have to do something!"

"Don't move!" She ordered, hand whipping out to hold them all behind her. "Move and you could create a paradox. Time and space would collapse in on itself!"

The Dalek moved out from the shadows, triumphant, blaster adjusting and eyestalk moving to set on the blonde woman with the gun, who'd stumbled, horror chipped into her face, hands clutching the sides of her head.

"Where is he?" The Doctor hissed. "Where's Jack?!"

The blaster tilted towards its target.

"No." Ryan had never heard the likes of it coming from the Doctor, never that amount of fear and confusion and conflict. She shifted, looking as if she were going to leap into action. "No, Jack, where are you?"

They watched the road, chests tight, no 'Jack' in sight.

"EX-TERM-IN-ATE!"

The girl was frozen, her mind in another universe entirely, eyes unmoving from the man on the ground. She was gonna die.

"EX-TERM-IN-ATE!"

"DOCTOR, NO!" Yaz screamed, but the Doctor's arm slipped from her grasp. "DOCTOR!"

The Doctor leapt from their cover, tearing up the pavement, coat like the absent moonlight, feet driving into the tarmac with such purpose surely not a doubt was passing her mind. Perhaps her mind wasn't working at all.

"OI! TIN CAN!" Boots planted to the ground, hands balled in fists at her sides, a thunder brewing in her eyes, oozing with an animalistic aggression, the Doctor faced the Dalek alone.

The Dalek swivelled.

"That's better." She grinned. It was sadistic. "Have a go. Just have a go."

Its eye spun in its socket, clicking like clockwork, adjusting to size up its new opponent. "Ex-ter-min-ate."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, hey, hey, welcome to the end of the second chapter! If you've made it this far, seriously, wow, thank you, you're amazing!  
> Next chapter should be coming soon!  
> x


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy I'm so sorry

CRASH!

Metal shards splintered the air as the casing shattered from the inside out.

The Doctor yelled, her voice matching the Dalek's shuddering scream and she raised an arm to shield herself from the bright white blast, staggering away, tripping over her own boots and nearly losing her footing. She steadied, breaths pumping, nose wrinkled. The dust cleared.

Ryan felt his hope bolster once more. That girl, the one the Doctor had mindlessly protected. Her gun was held high, its sights set on the fizzling remains of the Dalek, its barrel's white glow fading to be replaced by the complete panic consuming her demeanor.

Not wasting another second, she wrestled the gun strap off over her head and chucked it to the ground and for a moment, the scene Ryan was witnessing looked as if the two women were going to run to each other, embrace, say 'hi', at least. And, for a moment, it looked like that's exactly what the Doctor thought was going to happen, too.  
She raised a hand tentatively, the ghost of a smile accompanying a wave.

Seemed like the other woman had more important things to think about. She dragged herself away, scrambling to fall to her knees beside the man unmoving on the cold tarmac.  
"I've got you!" She assured him, her hands finding the back of his neck and pulling him up, back into consciousness. "I missed you- look! It's me."

Yaz stood up, rounding the Mini, devastation pulling her shoulders down. Another one they hadn't been able to save. Graham and Ryan joined her standing at a respectful distance, watching yet another man's final moments. It hurt.

But the woman was smiling, and he was, too, even if his face spelled agony and strands of his hair stuck to the sweat on his skin.  
"Rose." He struggled to find the breath. "Long time no see."

"Y-yeah. Been busy, you know."

The man groaned again and Ryan recoiled, turning his eyes to the left and watching the Doctor sonic the Dalek carcass, not seeming to care one bit about the man they'd just seen get shot. But no, he knew her better than that. He thought back, far back, to one of their first adventures. 'Just talking to cover up my latent worry'. She was doing it again, distracting herself from a reality she didn't want to face.  
She'd risked creating a paradox for this woman. That obviously meant a lot.

"Don't die. Oh my God, don't die! Don't die!" Rose begged, shaking his head as if it would help keep him awake.

The ginger lady from before, the one who had left the T.A.R.D.I.S with this man finally joined them, panting from the run and panic. She gave Ryan, Graham and Yaz a quick, fuddled glare before falling to her knees herself, pushing a hand into her friend's shoulder.

Graham stepped forward and though the other two gave some attempt at holding him back, all it comprised of were weak grabs of the wrists, easily shaken off. He neared the grieving group, voice low. "Don't you think we should get him out of the open? Somewhere safe?"

"Into that box!" The Doctor had finished with the Dalek and ran towards them, frantic, her words shrill and finger pointing at the T.A.R.D.I.S. "NOW!"

"You heard what she said!" Yaz nodded, rushing to the ginger lady and putting a hand on her arm. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Donna, Donna, just- oh my God he's not going to die, is he? He can't die!"

Rose grabbed the man's armpit and began to stand. "Donna, she's right, we need to get him to the T.A.R.D.I.S. Help me!"

"Yaz, help them!" The Doctor flew past them, heading straight for the T.A.R.D.I.S. "Should be fine to touch him! Hopefully! Ryan, Graham, with me!"

Graham and Ryan sprung into action, following her all the way to the blue box. There was a soft thump as she hit the door, fingers curling around the handle and she drew back a little, hesitating, looking back as the two of them jogged to a stop behind her.

"We've got a problem, big problem." She puffed. "Someone was meant to turn up and destroy that Dalek and he didn't. I really didn't want to do this - we're messing with history which shouldn't be meddled with, but I quite like the universe so, right now, I'm gonna say stick it to the rules."

"And that's a change?" Graham snorted.

"Now, things are gonna get complicated." The Doctor winced. She tapped the blue door. "This isn't the same T.A.R.D.I.S we came here in. This isn't mine, not yet, and... and you're gonna be finding things out that I should've told you about a long way back, but that's life. We're here now. Nothin' we can do.  
"Just-" She paused, and looked as if she was fighting with herself over what she was going to say next. Then she looked over her shoulder, straight into Graham's eyes, then Ryan's. "Trust me."

"'Course."

"Yeah, definitely."

"Coming through!" Yaz shouted and the Doctor pushed the door open, jumping inside and holding it. Ryan stepped aside and watched as the girls helped the dying man into the console room, one which, to his great surprise, he'd never seen before. Kind of.

He and Graham entered after them and stopped for a moment to take it all in. It was like their T.A.R.D.I.S, glowing and breathing a burnt orange, making the same noises, with a console sat in the middle of a huge, circular room, but it was... messier? More organic - in place of the usual crystalline spears sat immobile, coral-like columns, and the console itself was crowded with controls Ryan had never seen before, glowing a cool blue.  
It was funny, he thought, that the Doctor had as much a face of wonder as they did.

The grate clattered with the man's weight as he hit it, grunting and writhing, Rose and Donna holding him, letting him know they were there and that, for a short time, he was there, too. Ryan wondered how long Rose had been crying for.

"Wh-what do we do?" Donna was near-hysterical, her question seeming to be aimed at anyone who could possibly answer it: Rose, the helpful strangers, even the T.A.R.D.I.S. Anything.

Yaz backed up, throwing a distressed look at the Doctor, who burst into the console room, slipping her coat off and tossing it over the branches of one of the columns. She hopped around the controls, scanning them, the wrinkles in her brow deepening the more she searched.

"There must be some medicine or something!"

Ryan had a horrible feeling that no, there was nothing in the universe that could cure this, however much Donna asked for it. If there were, he was sure the Doctor would be a hell of a lot less scared of the Daleks.

"It's not here." The Doctor mumbled, making her fourth lap around the console, waving her hands around the space under it. "Rose, Donna, have you seen Jack, lately? Was he on the video call earlier?"

"Uh-uh- the bloke in the trenchcoat?" Donna stammered.

"Yes!"

"Yeah, yeah he was. Wait, but you weren't in that call. Who the hell _are_ you?!"

"Then where is it?! Where is _he_?" The Doctor staggered back, hands upturned like claws, frantic.

Yaz blurted, "Where's what? Doctor, he's dying!"

"Can't you do anything?" Graham finally entered the middle of the console room, pausing to look the man over, face grim.

Wait... Ryan frowned. Was he- "Grandad! He's glowing!"

"Right. No hand. No hand. No time to get one, no time to- to do anything." The Doctor shook herself out of it, again, and ran forward, pulling Graham away from the man on the floor. "Everybody back! Far as you can!"

Yaz, Ryan and Graham all did as she said, crowding around the pair of seats next to the console, but Donna and Rose remained at the man's side as he squirmed, his skin beginning to sparkle a dull gold, seeming to brim with some kind of energy, an energy Ryan could've sworn he'd seen before...

"Rose! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do." The Doctor knelt down, next to Rose, and cautioned an arm around her shoulder, holding her close, her voice soft. "He's dying, and you know what happens next."

Donna's voice wobbled, "What do you mean?"

Rose's head shook, her entire body shook, her face shining in the T.A.R.D.I.S light as she clutched the man tighter. "Not now," she gasped, "I came all this way."

He tried to look at her, tried, but tensed, flinching, struggling against something he was trying desperately to hold back.

"Rose, I'm sorry." The Doctor insisted, the devastation clear in her heavy tone. "We were too late, I'm sorry, but please, get back!"

Donna rose to her feet, her voice rising with her. "What do you mean? What happens next?!"

The man lifted his hand to the sky, turning it over until it began to gleam and fizz brighter and brighter. "It's starting."

Ryan clutched Graham's arm and Yaz took his hand in hers, squeezing it tight as the man battled his pain. Donna joined them, pulled into an encouraging embrace by Graham, who exchanged a frown of confusion with the other two.

"Here we go!" The Doctor yanked Rose away and pushed her back to the others, allowing the man space to drag himself slowly to his feet.

It was painful to watch. God knows how painful it must have been to be him. He pulled at the side of the console, buckled against it for a second before pushing himself up.

"Good luck." The Doctor gave him a quick, nervous smile before joining the group herself, a strange kind of fear weighing her down. "I don't know what we're gonna do if we get Eleven. Can't be dealing with Daleks _and_ fish fingers and custard."

"You what?" Donna hissed.

"Now you're just talking nonsense again."

"Not the time, Graham!"

Donna repeated: "Will someone just tell me what is going on?"

"I-I don't know." Yaz looked to the Doctor, baffled, but Rose answered for her, voice thick.

"When he's dying, his body i-it... repairs itself, it changes. But you can't!" She shouted, the words cracking almost as much as the Doctor's face did.

The man had come to face them, eyes just about clear enough so Ryan could tell he was looking at Rose, almost pleading with her. "I'm sorry." He shook his head, still leaning on the console for support. "It's too late." He was wheezing, panting as if that would help him, as if that would stop what was to come. "I'm regenerating!"

And with that, he was pulled upright by some invisible string, arms flung out, bursting, exploding in a blinding-bright gold.

"Doctor!" Ryan yelled over the static, deafening fizzing, hiding his head behind her back, anything to stop his eyes burning. "What's going on? Who is he?!"

"Control it!" She shouted. "You're going to be fine, I promise, just control it! Find somewhere to put it, find somewhere to siphon that energy!" The Doctor took a step forward, wrist held firmly in Yaz's grasp.

It was too fast. But even if it hadn't been, there would have been no way anyone could have stopped it.

The 'regenerating' man turned and aimed both arms at the Doctor, the energy roaring, blasting her right in the ribs, pushing her back. Her wrist was whipped from Yaz's hand as she was dragged into the exact same pose they'd seen the man do, energy pouring from her, and her scream with it.

"OH MY GOD!" Yaz screeched as she was yanked back with the rest of the group, scrambling to get away from the scorching heat of the flames.

"DOCTOR!"


	4. Chapter 4

Silence. It was as if the T.A.R.D.I.S herself could barely breathe. The regeneration had ended for both of them with a huge gasp, as if they'd been dragged from an ice-cold bath. And they looked down, at their hands, the Doctor pressing her collar bone, her nose, her eyebrows which were so far up her face they'd nearly disappeared into her - still blonde - hair.

"Change?" Graham said quietly. "But he hasn't changed at all." 

No one answered him. It seemed that this was one of those moments where no one had an answer to give.

"Now, then." The man sniffed, his eyes a lot brighter, shoulders square and pleasant surprise creasing his face. "Where were we? Wait, yes, who're you? Wait, no." He swallowed and his optimism was replaced with something a bit more dangerous. He neared the Doctor, slowly, as though he was entering the pen of a lion, leaving a leg behind in case he needed a quick escape.

It was only now that Ryan noticed: the Doctor was quiet, uncharacteristically so. She was hunched, if only slightly, and was standing very, very still.

Ryan felt Yaz move, as if she was going to try and help, but she was feeling the same thing Ryan was, surely? That aura around this strange man, like a barrier that held them back. They'd only felt this from a few people before. For Ryan, his Nan and the Doctor. It was respect.

"What _are_ you?" The man mumbled, bending down to peer into the Doctor's face. "How on Earth are you still alive?"

No answer. Ryan, Graham and Yaz all shared a look of horror. What was wrong with the Doctor?

He continued, shifting his back foot. "I'm sorry." The danger in his tone was pushed to the side by something softer, like genuine guilt. "I'm so sorry. All that energy, that wasn't meant to go into you. It _can't_ have gone into you. I used the regeneration energy to heal myself, then you said something about siphoning the energy, stopping the cycle before I changed. Genius. Why would I change? Look at me! But it was out of my control, the energy locked onto the nearest thing it could manifest inside. You. You shouldn't even exist right now."

"But I am."

"What?"

The Doctor's voice was weak, shaky, but the meaning behind it was still there. "I am existing." And relief returned to the T.A.R.D.I.S when a huge, almost hungry grin spread across her face. "Isn't that something?"

"But- that's impossible!"

"Cool, right?" The Doctor bounced into action, whizzing around the T.A.R.D.I.S with such energy she could've shattered the Earth itself. She spun on her heels, arms in the air, laughing, but Ryan could just about hear it in her voice: that sign that there was no mirth in there whatsoever. She was laughing out of stress, maybe a little bit of masochistic, interested glee. "Not cool for too long, though. Only so many minutes I can hold this energy for before it reaches its critical stage, then- then I'll be in trouble. We need that hand, where's the hand?!"

"What hand?" The man scratched the back of his head, face wrinkling further with an incredulously puzzled frown. "The only way you could hold that energy, no, no, that's not-"

"It is, leave it there, trust me." The Doctor pushed past Donna, giving her a small smile before stopping next to the console monitor and punching away at a few buttons and groaning. "Been a few years since I've seen controls like these. Might be a little rusty, hang on."

"Oi, what're you doing?" Donna asked, the man running up beside her looking really rather panicked.

"Step away from the controls. I demand you to tell me who you are."

The Doctor looked up from the screen, right into the blue light of a buzzing gadget. The man was brandishing it like a weapon, held at arm's length, straight between her eyes, very much like the Doctor always held her sonic...

"Mate, there's no need to threaten-" Graham started, cut off by the man's venomous retort.

"A bunch of strangers have burst into my T.A.R.D.I.S, somehow taken in my excess regeneration energy and lived, and are now attempting to fly my ship. If nothing else, this looks a hell of a lot like a hijack. I don't know what you are, but you're not human. No human could have survived that energy blast so what are you? Zygons? Slytheen?"

"Ah-" The Doctor stopped him there, aghast. "Do we look like Slytheen to you? And I'm not trying to fly. It might do you some good to learn what looks like flying and what looks like trying to access your ship's video memory banks. Oh, also-" She held up a finger, pointing it over his shoulder. "Don't you think you have someone to say hi to?"

Even if he was trying his best to intimidate the Doctor, it seemed there was no amount of willpower in the world that could have stopped him from looking back at Rose. He left the Doctor's side, alarm seeping away to be replaced by absolute joy all crammed into one restrained smile.

As Rose stepped forward, Yaz, Graham and Ryan all slipped behind her to join the Doctor, leaning around her to get a look at what she was doing with the console monitor.

"What just happened?" Yaz whispered sharply. "We thought..."

"It didn't look good." Ryan agreed.

The Doctor winced. "Didn't feel good."

"But, Doc, are you gonna tell us what's going on? Who are these people? What just happened to you?"

"So many questions," The Doctor tapped a few buttons and the monitor sprung to life. "Very, very little time." She looked around at the numerous glares she was getting and sighed. "He regenerated and poured his extra energy into me because there was nothing else to act as a container. In the right timeline, he had his old hand in a jar sat on the floor, right there. Long story. Big problem."

"Why's it a problem?"

"You absorbed the energy, all back to normal, right?" Ryan asked hopefully, knowing all too well that it wouldn't be as simple as that. It never was. 

"If I don't find somewhere else to put this energy, I'm going to have to use it up myself."

"And?"

The Doctor caught Yaz in her gaze, an intense, something-to-be-worried-about gaze. "I'll regenerate. What Rose said: I'll change. And I really don't want that yet." 

There were a few seconds filled with unease and the clicks of the computer controls. 

Yaz risked a question: "How long do we have?"

"Uh..." The Doctor stuck her tongue through her teeth. "About thirty minutes? Give or take ten."

"Okay. Okay, we'll find something. It'll be fine."

"Yeah."

Ryan backed away, casting his eyes over this strange new T.A.R.D.I.S once more. He was beginning to understand the Doctor's warning before they'd come in here. She knew these people, but he'd never heard the names 'Rose' or 'Donna' before. There was a lot that she hadn't told them about herself and he was beginning to wonder: who had they run away with? 

Rose and the man were close, now, Ryan noticed. "You're... still you?"

"I'm still me." 

He welcomed her into a warm embrace, chins on shoulders, arms tight around one another, both seeming far too scared to let one another go. His smile was so full of delight and love it pumped Ryan's heart up to twice its usual size. It was a moment he was glad he hadn't missed, and that sentiment was apparently shared by the Doctor, who'd paused in her typing to watch, beaming, glowing with enthusiasm for a relationship which wasn't hers. 

Ryan looked down, to the left, and had one of those awkward moments where you accidentally lock eyes with someone and it looks like you've been staring at them the entire time. Luckily, this 'Donna' diffused the awkwardness with a warm smile herself. She still seemed a little shocked and wind-swept, but that didn't stop her from being kind.

"I didn't catch it, what was your name?" She asked, holding out a hand.

"Uh-uh, Ryan." He took and shook it, then gestured to the rest of Team T.A.R.D.I.S. "'S nice to meet you. That's Yaz, my Grandad - Graham - and the-"

"Ah-ha!" The Doctor exclaimed, leaning closer into the screen and, with a shrug at Donna, Ryan rejoined the huddle, pushing himself to his tip-toes to see what they were all looking at. "One of my favourite bands, A-Ha. Fun fact. Awesome music video, loved that alternate dimension thing they had going. Look-" She pointed at the screen, the pixels going static around her skin. "Ooh, nice and retro."

"Retro?" The man spluttered, finally breaking the hug and striding over. "Excuse me, that is not retro."

With a hum, the Doctor tapped a button, starting a rewind on the video. "It's okay, we all have our own aesthetic." Before the man could protest any further, she tapped what Ryan assumed was 'play' in her language, the language he'd seen before all over their own T.A.R.D.I.S. "Look."

They all leaned in.

"Isn't this the video call we all got?" Rose observed. "It's recorded?"

"You were watching that?" Donna asked.

"Yeah, I was. Who're you looking for?" 

"Captain Jack Harkness." The Doctor spammed the fast-forward button, making the people onscreen talk in high voices. It would've been funny if the Doctor wasn't going to die in half an hour. "He's been interfered with and we need to know how, fast." 

"Tends to be a lot of interference with Jack." The man grumbled. 

"Oi."

"You think something happened when the line closed?" He continued, turning to sit on the console, hands deep in his pockets. 

"Hoping. If something happened on camera, then that's a mystery solved."

"But you know him?" Said Donna. "You know this 'Jack'?" 

The Doctor made a noise of amusement. "Everyone knows Jack. Right, here we go. Your ship's communication module was connected to Torchwood's. If I can just find that network... and patch ourselves in... then we can jump to... aha!" 

The screen switched to another angle, still in Torchwood, just a bit lower quality and higher up, focussed on the three people in the room, jumping about and working hard on something which seemed very important. 

"Is that a security camera?"

"Another ten points for Miss Yasmin Khan. Step it up, you two!" 

"I would if you stopped giving me gold stars, not exactly fair game." Ryan just got in before the Doctor flew off on another monologue of tech babble.

"This is the security camera right after the call finished. Look, he's grabbing the hand." She pointed at a man in a trenchcoat stooping down to lift a large glass container with a literal hand floating inside.

"What's he doing with a hand?" Donna gasped, seeming almost as done with the world as Graham was, who'd had his head in his hands as soon as he'd seen it. 

"That's mine!"

Everyone but the Doctor turned to stare at the man, all with varying degrees of horror. 

"No, but-but that's mine! That's my hand!"

"You have two hands on you, mate."

"Grew a new one." 

"You what?" 

He raised his hand and wiggled his fingers at Graham with a mischievous grin. "Hello!"

"Wait, the one you lost in that sword fight with the Sycorax?" Rose questioned, seeming completely unperturbed by the fact that her partner had apparently grown back an entire hand. 

Poor Donna hissed. "You grew back a hand?" 

"Yes, perfectly normal!" He leaped away, spinning on his converse while flexing said hand. "But what's Jack doing with it, of all people?"

"Oooh." The Doctor winced. "I think we've found out why he's late." Back on the screen, there was a huge flash of light, a bang which rattled the speakers and Jack froze, his entire body shaking violently as sparks lit him up. He was being electrocuted. 

"Oh my God!" Rose yelped. "Jack!" 

"What, who-"

The Doctor spun a dial, increasing the volume just in time to hear Jack's body hit the floor. His two co-workers ran to him, checking him over. 

"His time-vortex manipulator. It-it's gone awol!" The woman spat, ripping the device off his wrist and chucking it as far away as she could. "Jack, Jack, can you hear me?" 

"See?" The Doctor nodded.

The man sat on the console groaned. "Cheap and nasty time travel." 

Yaz looked up, a frown of near-realisation on her face. "Wait. No, you can't be-"

"Oh, what a bugger." 

"Yes, Graham." The Doctor growled. "You're absolutely correct."

Ryan could have smashed the screen. He thought he'd never see that face again - it wasn't possible. It couldn't be. He'd dealt with him himself. He'd sent him back, not forward.   
Into the room walked a man whose very image made Ryan's heart stop. Krasko. Going straight for the hand. He held a pipe high above his head, looking as if he were about to smash it. He felt the Doctor's shoulders seize.

Thankfully, Krasko didn't get so far. With a blast, his leg was whipped from under him and he hit the ground, hard. Face first. Ryan hoped he'd broken that nose. 

"You two, can you take care of him?" Jack jumped back to his feet as if nothing had happened at all, smoking gun held in one hand, his other reaching for the container. "Looks like I've got some running to do!" 

"He won't be a problem, don't you worry." The man in the picture got to his feet, rounding on Krasko, who struggled to turn onto his back, hands around the wound in his knee. 

"Doesn't matter." Krasko sneered. "You're gonna be too late. There's nothing you can do now." 

"Ah, don't be so pessimistic." Jack grinned. "I'll see you two later." And he ran out the door. 

"Did he just shoot Krasko?" Yaz gasped. 

"What a hero."

"No, Ryan." 

"Sorry, sorry."

"But he's on his way." Donna said.

Rose added, "How long ago was tha-"

But before she could finish, there was a creak and a slam and from behind them echoed a very smug, very suave voice. 

"Long enough to get here. Hey, Rose, Donna." Ryan turned to see the real Jack nodding his head respectfully to the two women. "How's it goin', Doctor?" 

"Alright, you?"   
"Alright, you?" 

Wait. Two people had replied to that, at the same time. Wait. Wait. Ryan looked at the man, the man looked at the Doctor. She looked as if she were about to throw up.

Oh. 

The man scowled, everything seeming to finally click. But still, he asked exactly what everyone else was thinking:  
" _What_?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya everyone! Thank you so much for all of the kudos and incredible comments! They're what's keeping me writing!   
> Also I just wanted to apologise for the writing quality in this chapter. I may have been a bit distracted with watching some Doctor Who... may have.  
> Love you all!  
> x


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone!   
> Over the past couple of days, I've been receiving a ridiculous amount of positivity and love from you all - it's enough to keep a sun burning! Your support is what's keeping this going and you have no CLUE how grateful I am for all your lovely comments and reviews. Thank you so, so much.
> 
> I also have some news, though!   
> !!!!Please read below!!!!
> 
> I have a finished manuscript for a fantasy novel just waiting for me to self-publish and I intend to do this through crowdfunding. I already tried a campaign once before but I, unfortunately, didn't get the funding, simply because I struggled to reach out to enough people. 
> 
> So please, if you enjoy this fanfiction and would like to see some more of my stuff, please consider following the link below to have a look at the campaign page for Deity. The social medias at the bottom of the page for it at the moment are inactive, however I do want to start them up again soon, so please give them a follow for updates! This novel means a hell of a lot to me and it would make my life if it could mean a lot to other people, too. It's just that I need help to make it happen.
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> The campaign will run again soon, so keep an eye out (and it'd be awesome if you could spread the word a bit). 
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> Deity campaign page: https://igg.me/at/deitynovel/x/19180888
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> Thank you so, so much! Please enjoy the chapter! More updates to come soon.  
> x

"No. No, you can't." 

The Doctor - Ryan's Doctor - ignored the... the other Doctor and jumped for Jack, pushing though the crowd of very confused, very starey people and taking the hand jar from him with a big grin on her face, the one she usually wore when she was trying hard not to be worried about the elephant in the room.   
"Thanks, Jack, lovely to see you again."

"I was about to introduce myself, but," Jack started, a smirk joining his shock, "guess you already know me. More than lovely to see you, too-"

"Don't start, Jack." 

"What? I didn't do anything!" 

"Hm." She gave him a stern nod of the head and turned back to the console, eyes to the floor where no one could meet them. "Everything's fine, regeneration not gonna happen. Well, hopefully. Very slim chance." The grate clattered once more when the jar hit it and the hand inside bobbed about, bubbling. Ew. 

"I knew it." Yaz said, mouth agape with a hint of interest pulling at its corners. "You weren't joking about the white-haired Scotsman thing!"

"'Course I weren't. Funny thing to joke about." 

"Wait, wait, you're sayin' that-" Donna gasped. "No way."

"Just what I was thinking." The man- the other 'Doctor' drew closer to the real one, looking at her as if, well, as if he were looking at an alien. "But you can't be."

She hummed. "Yes, I can. Was hoping I could finish and get out before you clocked on but I guess I underestimated myself." Finally, she looked up at him with a gulp. She seemed to struggle for a moment before a smile poked at her face. The only thing Ryan could class it as was... smug. "Nice to see ya again. Quite fond of that face."

He straightened up, looking offended. But it seemed he was about as good at hiding his pride as she was. His eyebrows raised and head bobbed as he tightened his tie and sniffed. "Thanks. I try. Wait, wait, wait, no. No, step away from there." 

"Why?"

"You've gone back on your own history, a very, very simple time travelling rule. You can't interfere with this - you could rupture a hole in time and space itself!"

The Doctor rolled her eyes. "Forgot I used to be so dramatic."

"Mate, didn't you see that footage? Think the interference's already happened." Ryan thought he'd lend her a hand and he tried, he really did, he tried to hold back the urge to ask her, but he couldn't resist it. This was just too confusing to let go. "Doctor, what's happening? How's this guy you? I know you're an alien and all that but..."

"Good question, Ryan, difficult to answer."

"You haven't told them yet?" The suited Doctor hissed at her, casting an eye over the three of them. 

"Oh, come on. Serious case of pot calling the kettle black, _Doctor_." She nodded at Donna, who was still stood stock-still with a look of utter confusion on her face. "Think we've both got some explaining to do. Would love to do it now but don't think we have the time."

"What d'you mean?"

"Alright, cockle?" 

Everyone's focus switched from the Doctors to Graham, from Graham to Rose. She'd been silent this whole time, now that Ryan thought about it and though he burned to know exactly what was going on, the look on Rose's face told him that she needed this. She needed a moment between her and this new Doctor. 

Donna obviously recognised that too, and gently pulled Yaz away by the sleeve. "Well, come on, then. Give 'em some space!" 

They all did as she said, backing off and joining Jack, welcoming him aboard and just generally... chatting. Chatting, with an ear to the conversation behind them. The tall Doctor hadn't moved, sat back on the controls with his arms crossed and a neutral expression, watching over the exchange like a sentinel. 

Rose neared the woman crouched before the jar, running her hands over its glass and pretending to watch her hands glow. Pretending. Ryan could tell she was preoccupying herself from a mile off. 

"Doctor?" 

She looked up, eyes saying so much yet so little. 

Rose bit her lip, sharing a glance with her Doctor before returning to stare at the one on the floor. Silence. 

"So, Donna-" Jack began loudly, but quickly lost his track again when the Doctor spoke.

She smiled, and though it was polite at most, it was almost pained. "Ta, for the Dalek. Was scared for a second."

"What?" Rose huffed an ironic laugh. "That I'd just stand there and let you die? Doesn't matter if you're the Doctor or not."

"No, quite right." The Doctor bowed her head. "Quite right."

"Thanks for distracting it."

"Nah, a bit'a running and shouting 's never a problem for me, is it?"

Another silence. This time, no one tried to fill it. 

The Doctor looked back up, hung her shoulders, sighed, then pushed herself to her feet. 

"You're a woman." Rose observed. 

"Yep." The Doctor paused, hands deep in her trouser pockets as if she was thinking something over, then added in a high tone: "Can you tell me, because no one's actually answered this yet - been too busy running, being shot at, the usual-" she gave a nervous giggle, "does it suit me?" 

"You're Northern again." 

The Doctor looked away, taking a deep breath. Question still not answered. Ryan thought she would go back to the jar, keep working, distracting herself. But she didn't. Instead, a huge, mischievous smile, the exact same one the other Doctor had worn when he wiggled his fingers at Graham exploded across her face.   
"Lots of planets have a North, Rose Tyler."

Rose looked down, to the side, lips thinning as she chewed on them, but slowly forming something which Ryan considered to be the starting of a smile, an emotional one at that. Then, in one, quick flurry, she bundled this smaller, blonder Doctor in her arms and held her close, the smile she buried in her shoulder almost as big as the Doctor's.   
"It suits you. I'm a fan of the blonde."

"Yeah." Tall Doctor grumbled. "Still not ginger."

"Doc, hate to ruin the moment, but regeneration?"

"Mm!" She drew back from Rose, holding her at arm's length for a second before crouching back beside the jar. "Right you are, Graham! Few more minutes an' I could very well be ginger."

"So that's how this regeneration thing works?" Yaz shuffled back round the crowded T.A.R.D.I.S to the Doctor's side. "You just turn into someone else?"

"Kind of. Kinda not. Sorry, Yaz, need to concentrate. Don't really want to give you a demonstration, not right now." The Doctor took a deep breath, hands hovering above the hand jar.

Donna asked what they were all thinking: "What're you doing?"

"Gonna take all that extra energy Sandshoes over here gave me and put it into the hand. The Time Lord DNA should take it and store it. Panic over."

"Sandshoes?" Tall Doctor spluttered. 

"To be fair, I do miss them." She nodded. "Sorry, take all my insults with a pinch of salt."

"You're panicking?" Jack questioned.

"Yeah, but 'm getting better at hiding it."

"No, she's not."

"Rather you didn't, Ryan."

"Sorry." 

"How're you gonna do that?" Yaz sounded worried. Really, Ryan was, too. If the Doctor was panicking then she always had a good reason to. 

"I don't want to trigger a regeneration cycle again - I already held it off the once and if it happens again there's no guarantee I'd be able to stop it. So," she sighed, hands slapping her knees as she looked up at them all, "I'm gonna have to do this slowly. Sorry. Ugh." Scratching the back of her head, she scrunched her face up. "Really all I want is for you three to get back to the T.A.R.D.I.S, our T.A.R.D.I.S, but it's too risky, there're too many Daleks out there."

"No, we're not leaving you." Yaz declared. "Thought we'd already drilled that into you."

Ryan nodded. "Yeah, we go where you go." 

"You make us sound like bodyguards, Ryan." Graham laughed. "But yeah, yeah, I'm with these two. We're staying."

"Knowing the Doctor," Jack chuckled. "I'd be happy if he- or she- did have bodyguards."

The Doctor got back to her feet, face glowing not with regeneration energy this time, but pride. "Look at you. My fam." 

"Your what?" The other Doctor scoffed. "Fam? You sound like a fifteen-year-old."

"Oi, 'Timey-Wimey', why don't you start explaining rather than sitting on the controls? Come on!" She beckoned him off with a flick of her hand then fell back down to the hand jar, resting both hands on its surface and lowering her head. "Time to get this nasty stuff outta me." Closing her eyes, her hands began to glow, brighter this time, and Ryan could see it, the energy transferring from her to the jar, slowly, controlled. 

"Good luck, Doctor." Ryan wished her. He got no reply. Hopefully that wasn't a bad thing.

"Right," the other Doctor sniffed again, straightening up and looking rather awkward in front of this new, large audience, "regeneration. Ah, okay, so." He splayed his hands out in front of him, lips thin. "I am a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey - not from Mars, funnily enough-"

"Oi, watch it, Space Man!" 

He snickered at Donna before continuing. "Us Time Lords, when we die, we don't really... die. If we get mortally wounded then there's a way that we can, really, cheat death. It's a process called regeneration. To fix whatever's wrong, we rework ourselves, literally. Same mind, same memories, completely different person."

"I don't know, mate," Graham nodded at his Doctor, "you don't seem so different to her."

"Like I said, same memories. Our personalities can change dramatically but there's nothing stopping us from revisiting an old regeneration or two in that respect."

"Right." Yaz said slowly. "So you're still our Doctor, just... a few years back and with a different face?"

"Yes."

"Okay, no spoilers, then."

"No."

"Paradox?"

"Yep. Honestly, you being here is ridiculously close to a paradox in itself. I'm surprised she did it. Guess I lose some sense in my old age."

"Mate, she's not stupid." Ryan said sharply. "She's trying to help. She got a call on an old phone, Martha Jones? Martha didn't answer her so we followed the signal. The Doctor thought someone needed our help."

"You can't deny it, Doctor." Rose smiled. "That does sound a lot like you."

Everything went dark. The Doctor frowned, looking around with alarm as the others all froze, knowing full well that a power cut in the T.A.R.D.I.S was a bad omen. 

He pushed past Yaz, Donna and in front of Jack, fiddling with switches and levers and buttons, wobbling them and punching them while blurting: "They've got us. Power's gone..." He looped all the way back around the console and stopped before the screen, leaning over the other Doctor - who hadn't so much as flinched - to read the data ruling the pixels. "Some kind of- chronon loop!"

With no warning, the whole T.A.R.D.I.S lurched, sending its passengers flying. Ryan saw Jack and Yaz leap for the Doctor glued to the hand jar, saw Rose and Graham and Donna all grab onto the console, saw the other Doctor get thrown straight onto the controls and he wished he'd done the same. He wished he'd grabbed the console and he tried, he really did. But there's that little thing called dyspraxia which really didn't want him safe. 

His hands slipped and his footing lost itself and Graham shouting "RYAN!" was the last thing he heard before his head smacked something very hard.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! Thank you so much for reading this chapter of my first fanfic in years! 
> 
> Please, if you enjoyed it, I would appreciate it greatly if you considered leaving a quick comment below - comments are like fuel to us writers! Honestly, if it's just to say hi, I'd be over the moon - I'd love to talk to you guys!  
> I'll try and update as soon as I can!
> 
> Thank you and have a fantastic day!


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